1970s – Page 92 – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

Jim Croce – Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels)

This is one of the first songs I remember hearing. I’ve always liked the song and it remains my favorite of Jim Croce. It peaked at #17 in the Billboard 100 and #11 in Canada. Jim’s songs were about everyday people. Jim and Maury Muehleisen guitars blended perfectly with each other.

Jim Croce quote about Operator

“I got the idea for writing “Operator” by standing outside of the PX waiting to use one of the outdoor phones. There wasn’t a phone booth; it was just stuck up on the side of the building and there were about 200 guys in each line waiting to make a phone call back home to see if theirÔDear John’ letter was true, and with their raincoat over their heads covering the telephone and everything, and it really seemed that so many people were going through the same experience, going through the same kind of change, and to see this happen especially on something like the telephone and talking to a long-distance operator-this kinda registered. And when I got out of theArmy I was working in a bar where there was a telephone directly behind where I was playing and I couldn’t help but be disturbed by it all the time, and I noticed that the same kind of thing was going’ on. People checkin’ up on somebody or finding out who was Ð what was goin’ on, but always talking to the operator. And I decided that I would write a song about it. But I didn’t really start getting the idea for the song itself, the real outline of it until I was doing the construction work after I got out of the music business the first time, and I started carrying a cassette machine in the truck. I started ÔOperator’ on the way back, one afternoon, just singin’ into a cassette machine. But it’s-it’s one of those songs that kinda comes out of experiences that you watch for a long time, just to see if they’re really valid. I kinda like to write songs about things that a lot of people have experience with because it really makes the songs communicate.”

Operator

Operator, well could you help me place this call?
See, the number on the matchbook is old and faded
She’s living in L.A. with my best old ex-friend Ray
A guy she said she knew well and sometimes hated

Isn’t that the way they say it goes? Well, let’s forget all that
And give me the number if you can find it
So I can call just to tell ’em I’m fine and to show
I’ve overcome the blow, I’ve learned to take it well
I only wish my words could just convince myself
That it just wasn’t real, but that’s not the way it feels

Operator, well could you help me place this call?
Well, I can’t read the number that you just gave me
There’s something in my eyes, you know it happens every time
I think about a love that I thought would save me

Operator, well let’s forget about this call
There’s no one there I really wanted to talk to
Thank you for your time, ah, you’ve been so much more than kind
And you can keep the dime

Mattel Electronic Football

If you were 10-15 years old in 1977-78 you probably remember this game.

My friend had this game and I basically took it over every time we were on the bus and the times he would come over because he liked the auto racing game. I ended up buying it from him.

It was released in June of 1977 as the second game released by Mattel (Auto Race was the first) and sold through Sears. After less than 100,000 were made, Sears determined that the games would not be big sellers, and most of the production for Football and Auto Race was stopped. Well, Sears was wrong and had to restart the production.

By mid-February 1978 the sales figures were up to 500,000.

Who would think that red dashes could be so much fun?

Here is a commercial for the football game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtUe4qi2yfw&ab_channel=31Mike

http://www.handheldmuseum.com/Mattel/Trivia.htm#9yards

70s Saturday Mornings – Big John, Little John

After taking a sip from a fountain of youth, John Martin changed from a 45-year-old school teacher to a 12-year-old. Because he only took a sip, the change was not permanent but the change was reoccurring and Martin had no control as to when the change would occur.

John’s secret was only know to his immediate family and to explain the appearance of the 12-year-old John, they claimed he was their nephew. Throughout the series, John tried to find a cure for his predicament, but he was unsuccessful in his attempts. (http://www.70slivekidvid.com/bjlj.htm)

The show also featured Joyce Bulifant who appeared on Matchgame many times. I’ve only met a handful of people who actually remember the show.

This Saturday morning series was only on for one season 1976. It only lasted for 13 episodes. I liked the fountain of youth stories (especially now!) and I really liked the show at 9 years old. It starred Herb Edelman as Big John and Robbie Rist as Little John. Robbie Rist was the infamous cousin Oliver in the Brady Bunch. Robbie looked like a miniature John Denver to me… and grew up to be a musician…and actor.

Robbie Rist John Denver

Below the Big John, Little John intro video… is a tv commercial from the same time that shows my favorite EVER peanut butter spread…Koogle…I loved the Banana flavor.

Koogle Peanut Butter spread…I wish they would bring it back…probably was the worst thing for you but it was so good. I loved the banana flavor.

Maria Muldaur – Midnight at the Oasis

It took years for me to appreciate this song but I do now. Her voice is incredible on it. Critics and other rock stars loved this song at the time. It peaked at #6 in the Billboard 100, #21 in the UK, and #2 in Canada in 1974.

AllMusic reviewer Matthew Greenwald describes the song as “so sensual and evocative that it was probably one of the most replayed records of the era and also may be responsible for the most pregnancies from a record during the mid-’70s”

From Songfacts.

A hit song can become a burden to a singer if she is sick of the song yet still expected to perform it night after night. So how does Muldaur feel about constantly performing this song? She told us: “I still do enjoy singing it. And you know why? Because number one, it was a very hip-ly written song. A lot of the jazz artists have covered it because it’s very well constructed. Imagine my plight if my big hit had been ‘Wild Thing‘ by the Troggs, a really dumb three-chord song. But it’s a song that’s so well constructed that an artist can improvise on it night after night. So that’s reason number one, it’s a cool song.

Reason number two is I love the look of the faces of the audience when the band strikes that number up, when the band goes into the intro of that number. Because apparently, from all the stories that have been told to me when I meet my fans after the show to sign my CD, that song was the soundtrack to many a love-and-lust affair, and if I had been

writing down all the stories of what people tell me they were doing or were inspired to do because of that song, or as that song was playing, I could have written quite the little x-rated book. So when I start that song, people’s faces light up and I see very happy, maybe slightly x-rated memories flitting across their faces. And so that’s worth more than any Grammy nomination or award – to hear first hand from your fans, from hundreds and hundreds of fans, how a piece of music I didn’t even write, but that I selected and recorded and just put out there in the airwaves, just had such a happy impact on people’s lives. What a gift is that?”

Midnight at the Oasis

Midnight at the oasis
Send your camel to bed
Shadows painting our faces
Traces of romance in our heads
Heaven’s holding a half-moon
Shining just for us
Let’s slip off to a sand dune, real soon
And kick up a little dust
Come on, Cactus is our friend
He’ll point out the way
Come on, till the evening ends
Till the evening ends
You don’t have to answer
There’s no need to speak
I’ll be your belly dancer, prancer
And you can be my sheik

I know your Daddy’s a sultan
A nomad known to all
With fifty girls to attend him, they all send him
Jump at his beck and call
But you won’t need no harem, honey
When I’m by your side
And you won’t need no camel, no no
When I take you for a ride
Come on, Cactus is our friend
He’ll point out the way
Come on, till the evening ends
Till the evening ends
Midnight at the oasis
Send your camel to bed
Got shadows painting our faces
And traces of romance in our heads

Lynyrd Skynyrd – 41 Years Ago

It’s been 41 years since Lynyrd Skynyrd’s plane crashed in a swamp in Gillsburg, Mississippi. The band had just released the album “Street Survivors” and it was probably their best well-rounded album. With new guitarist Steve Gaines, they were primed for commercial success but on October 20, 1977, they lost singer-songwriter Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, backup singer Cassie Gaines, and road manager Dean Kilpatrick. The plane crash also claimed the lives of pilot Walter McCreary and co-pilot William Gray Jr.

A year earlier Steve Gaines joined the band and he was pushing them in directions they never had gone. Listening to “Street Survivors” you can hear his influence with songs I Never Dreamed and I Know A Little. Steve was a super talented guitarist, songwriter, and singer and I have to wonder where his career would have gone.

On this tour, they were headlining and moving up in status after years of touring as mostly an opening band.

Below is a good Rolling Stone article on the crash. The song below that is “I Never Dreamed,” a song heavily influenced by Gaines.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/remembering-lynyrd-skynyrds-deadly-1977-plane-crash-2-195371/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqpynngNypo&ab_channel=LynyrdSkynyrdLover

Alan “Blind Owl” Wilson

Alan Wilson is a forgotten figure who was a gifted musician. He died in 1970 under strange circumstances outdoors in a sleeping bag near his band’s lead singer’s (Bob Hite) house. He was dead at the age of 27. Jimi Hendrix would die in a couple of weeks and Janis Joplin would follow a month later…all of them were age 27.

Alan grew up in Boston, Massachusetts where he became a music major at Boston University. He was a frequent player at the Cambridge coffeehouse folk-blues circuit. Alan ended up a blues scholar. He had a massive collection of old blues records and was a walking encyclopedia of the blues. Wilson’s nickname, “Blind Owl,” was bestowed upon him by friend John Fahey during a road trip in 1965 from Boston to Los Angeles and was a reference to the extra-thick lenses Wilson wore.

Alan moved to Los Angeles and met Bob “The Bear” Hite and in 1965 started Canned Heat. The group decided to take their name from “Canned Heat Blues,” an obscure 1928 track by bluesman Tommy Johnson that described the drug high achieved through drinking the household product Sterno.

In 1967, after appearing at the Monterey Pop Festival, Canned Heat signed to Liberty Records. They made a self-titled album that year and it peaked at #76 on the Billboard Charts. In 1968 they released “Boogie with Canned Heat” which made it to number 16. They followed that album with “Living the Blues”(#18) and in 1969 released album Hallelujah(#37).

Their appearance at Woodstock raised their stock higher. They had two hit singles both sung by Alan Wilson, Going Up Country (1968 ) and On The Road Again (1969). Alan wasn’t the lead singer of Canned Heat but he sang the two best-known singles by them. They were both written by him and based off old blues songs. His unusual voice came from him trying to mimic the voice of old blues singers.

He was very intelligent, awkward, suffered from depression and was not a prototypical rock star. Alan was a serious environmentalist trying to save the Redwood trees. He would sleep outside often to be alone with nature. Alan Wilson was a superb slide guitar and harmonica player. John Lee Hooker said that Wilson was “the greatest harmonica player who ever lived.”

He was a big fan of Eddie James House, Jr. who was was better known as “Son House,” the great blues artist who had retired. He not only retired but was an alcoholic and had not played guitar in years and could not remember his old songs and slide parts from the 20s and 30s. Son House is said to have tutored Robert Johnson. John Hammond asked Alan Wilson to teach the 63-year-old Son House how to play like Son House again. Wilson knew his old records and licks and taught them to Son House who relearned them. House was later signed to a contract.

It gave Son House a career again and he kept playing till he retired again in 1974 after being rediscovered by a new generation. You can hear them both together on the Son House album John the Revelator: The 1970 London Sessions.

Alan died on September 3, 1970. No one knows if it was a suicide or an accidental overdose of Seconal.

Canned Heat continues to this day but they were never as successful after Alan passed away.

For a complete look at Alan Wilson go here to http://www.blindowl.net/index.html
it’s a great site. Below is an essay he wrote in 1970 about the Redwoods.

“Grim Harvest”

“The redwoods of California are the tallest living things on earth, nearly the oldest, and among the most beautiful to boot. They dominated the woods of the northern hemi-sphere in the time of the dinosaurs, a time when no mammal, flower, or blade of grass had yet appeared on earth. The Ice Age nearly exterminated them – of the once vast redwood forest only a remnant was spared by the immense glaciers which covered most of Europe, Asia, and North America in the not-too-distant evolutionary past.

Walking through this forest is an experience unique on earth. Here the sun’s rays are intercepted three hundred feet and more above the ground and are broken into tiny shimmering beams which descend among the towering pillars to play, at length, on the forest floor. Fern and wildflower bathe in the soft glow of a thousand muted spotlights which flicker on and off as the trees’ upper boughs sway majestically in a gentle wind.

2.000.000 acres of virgin redwood forest greeted the white man’s civilization as he completed his sweep of North America. In the last 100 years 1,800,000 acres of these have been logged, and of the remaining 200,000 only 75,000 are presently safe from devastation in state and national parks. At a time when these parks campsites must be reserved months in advance, the remaining 125,000 acres are being “harvested” (as the lumber-men put it), for uses which other trees could fulfill.

At the current rate of “harvest,” these remaining acres will be cleared within the next ten years.”

– Alan C. Wilson, 1970

Dolly Parton – Jolene

This great artist has crossed genres and is loved by many for her singing, songwriting, acting, honesty, and just being Dolly. The song peaked at #60 on Billboard’s 100, #1 on the Hot Country Song Chart and #84 in Canada in 1974.

I’ve talked to people who have met her and know her. I hear the same stories on how nice and generous she is with her time. In the Country Charts Dolly has had 25 NO. 1 HITS 54 TOP 10 HITS 107 SONGS IN THE CHARTS

From Songfacts.

Dolly Parton has disclosed in several interviews that the song was also inspired by a red-headed bank clerk who flirted with her husband Carl Dean around the time they were newly married. Recalling the origins of her hit tune during her performance at Glastonbury 2014, she said:

“Now, some of you may or may not know that that song was loosely based on a little bit of truth. I wrote that years ago when my husband was spending a little more time with Jolene than I thought he should be.

I put a stop to that. I got rid of that redhead woman in a hurry.

I want you folks to know, though, that something good can come from anything. Had it not been for that woman I would never have written ‘Jolene’ and I wouldn’t have made all that money, so thank you, Jolene.”

Some of the many artists who have covered this: The White Stripes, Reba McEntire, Olivia Newton-John and 10,000 Maniacs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IW25foOMkwI&ab_channel=MUSICLEGENDS

Jolene
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene,
I’m begging of you: please don’t take my man
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene,
Please don’t take him just because you can

Your beauty is beyond compare
With flaming locks of auburn hair
With ivory skin and eyes of emerald green

Your smile is like a breath of spring
Your voice is soft like summer rain
And I cannot compete with you, Jolene

He talks about you in his sleep
There’s nothing I can do to keep
From crying when he calls your name, Jolene

And I can easily understand
How you could easily take my man
But you don’t know what he means to me, Jolene

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene,
I’m begging of you: please don’t take my man
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene,
Please don’t take him just because you can

You could have your choice of men
But I could never love again
He’s the only one for me, Jolene

I had to have this talk with you
My happiness depends on you
And whatever you decide to do, Jolene

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene,
I’m begging of you: please don’t take my man
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene,
Please don’t take him even though you can

Jolene, Jolene

Tom Snyder – The Tomorrow Show

People seem to have really liked Tom Snyder or really disliked him. I’ve watched many of Tom’s interviews and he is quirky and quick to laugh (and laugh) at his own jokes but many of his interviews are remembered. The show lasted from 1973 to 1982. It was canceled to make room for David Letterman.

This was no Tonight Show. You didn’t see skits or monologues, you only saw Tom interviewing his guests and joking with his off-camera assistants. He wasn’t hip nor was he completely square. Someone called him at the time a hip square. It was just him and his guest on a dark set.

I liked Tom because he seemed real and genuine. He could laugh at himself and conducted some really good interviews. After this show ended he did a radio show out of Los Angeles, a few tv guest appearances and he guest hosted the David Letterman Show a few times.

David Letter quote

“Tom was the very thing that all broadcasters long to be — compelling,” “Whether he was interviewing politicians, authors, actors or musicians, Tom was always the real reason to watch. I’m honored to have known him as a colleague and a friend.”

One of the many SNL skits I liked was Dan Aykroyd imitating Tom Snyder…this is Aykroyd as Tom interviewing Mick Jagger.

The John Lennon interview in 1975. This would be the last TV interview he gave. John is battling his immigration status and has his lawyer Leon Wildes with him to explain what is going on. John comes off open and honest in this interview.

The Saturday Night Live cast before the first show. This is a partial look at the interview.

This is one a good one. Tom has KISS as guests and I just love how a drunk Ace Frehley (The Trout Player) takes over the interview and infuriates Gene Simmons. You can see Gene’s eyes shooting daggers at Ace and Peter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Snyder

The 50’s Revival in the 1970’s

When the Beatles arrived in 1964, the short hair and car hops of the fifties were going away. The sixties in some ways liberated people from the fifties for better or worse. The crew-cuts and simple times were giving way to Vietnam and the social unrest of the sixties.

Slowly as the sixties started to come to a close the fifties started to peak in again.

In the late sixties, Sha Na Na started their act and even toured with well-known acts. Fats Domino, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis’s popularity grew and Elvis started to make music again instead of soundtracks with his 1968 comeback special. In 1971 a disc jockey name Jerry Osborne started an “oldies” format on FM radio in Phoenix, Arizona and it was successful and other emulated it around the country.

In 1972 “Grease” a musical that took place in 1959 debuted on Broadway. In 1973 George Lucas came out with American Graffiti and boom really started. The soundtrack to American Graffiti peaked at #10 in the Billboard 100 in 1973. Happy Days debuted the following year and fifties music was gaining in popularity.

A spin-off from Happy Days Laverne and Shirley, also set in the fifties, was a huge success and still is syndication to this day. In 1974 the 50s era movie The Lords of Flatbush with the pre-Rocky Sylvester Stallone and Henry Winkler of Happy Days.

In 1977 Sha Na Na started a variety show…Unfortunately I remember this…

In 1978, two big fifties era movies were released. Grease and American Hot Wax which featured performances by Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. Styles seem to recycle every 20 years or so but in the 1970s the fifties revival was really strong. Maybe it was a want for a more simpler time.

The 1972 London Rock and Roll Show

The Six Million Dollar Man

Voice #1: It looks good at NASA One
Voice #2: Roger
Voice #1: B.C.S. Arm switch is on
Steve Austin: Okay, Victor
Voice #2: Lighting rods are armed. Switch is on. Here comes the throttle
Circuit breakers in
Steve Austin: We have separation
Voice #2: Roger
Voice #1: Inboard and outboards are on. I’m comin’ forward with the side stick
Voice #2: Looks good
Voice #1: Uh, Roger
Steve Austin: I’ve got a blow-out in Damper Three!
Voice #2: Get your pitch to zero
Steve Austin: Pitch is out! I can’t hold altitude!
Voice #1: Correction, Alpha Hold is off. Turn selectors–Emergency!
Steve Austin: Flight Com, I can’t hold it! She’s breaking up! She’s break–
(Impact)
Rudy Wells: Steve Austin, astronaut–a man barely alive
Oscar Goldman: Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We
Have the capability to make the world’s first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man
Rudy Wells and Steve Austin: Will be that man
Oscar Goldman: Better than he was before: better, stronger, faster

So began one of the biggest television shows of the mid-seventies. Steve Austin, astronaut (Lee Majors) was in a terrible accident in an experimental aircraft. He was near death and operated on and he had parts replaced such as two bionic legs, bionic eye, and a bionic arm. Steve Austin was essentially a superhero. He could lift and toss around almost anything, he had an eye with super focus and night vision and he could run up to 60 mph and jump 2-3 stories. He worked for the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) with Oscar Goldman as his boss. The Oscar character was popular also.

Oscar Goldman

The series was on for 5 seasons (99 episodes) 1974-1978 with 6 TV movies…with the last one coming in 1994.

The show had a huge impact on kids. We would imitate him at school and with kids in the neighborhood. We would also imitate the noise that was made when he did some terrific stunt (da da da da da da da). Back in the seventies, some of us kids thought this would really work.

Merchandising was huge for the show. Everything from lunch boxes and running shoes to children’s eyeglasses through to jigsaws, coloring books, comic books, trash cans, slide viewers, board games and bedsheets. I don’t have the statistics on the most merchandised tv show in the 1970s but this show has to be near the top. A little later on Star Wars would take merchandising it to another level.

The merchandising didn’t stop with Steve Austin either. Lindsey Wagner (Jamie Sommers) stared as the Bionic Woman and out came the merchandise again. Jamie was Steve’s girlfriend and they went skydiving and Jamie’s parachute malfunctioned and Steve asked Oscar Goldman to use bionic parts on her to save her. Her body rejected them but she pulled through and ended up and working for the OSI also.

The Bionic Woman lasted three seasons with 58 episodes airing from 1976 – 1978. In the final season, a bionic dog was introduced named Maximillian. There was a thought of another spinoff show with Maximillian but it did not happen. The dog could run 90 mph and bite through steel…Maybe it was good they drew the line.

In the 1994 TV Movie, “Bionic Ever After” Steve and Jame ties the knot.

The Intro

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Six_Million_Dollar_Man

Dr. Suess on the Loose

I’ve always liked the peculiar World of Dr. Suess. It could be strange but it was wonderful. The strange creatures that spoke in rhyme kept me hooked.

In 1973 the cartoon “Dr. Suess on the Loose” (Green Eggs and Ham and Other Stories) aired and featured three stories. The Sneetches, The Zax, and the great Green Eggs and Ham. I still enjoy this cartoon.

I will admit that every time I watch a Dr. Suess cartoon that when I have a conversation afterward I want to talk in rhyme.

The Zax – One day in the Prairie of Pax a North-Going Zax and a South-Going Zax run into each other. Both are trying to get to their desired locations, but neither will move out of the way to let the other one pass. Both are too proud to compromise, they fail to see that the world continues on moving and time passes by.

The Sneetches – The Sneetches is about two types of creatures, separated by having or not having stars on their bellies. The Star-Belly Sneetches think they are the best, and look down upon Sneetches without stars. The Plain-Belly Sneetches remain depressed and cannot associate with the Star-Belly Sneetches…Until a fellow named Sylvester McMonkey McBean comes with a Star off and Star on machine and after every Sneetch goes the machine over and over again…and McBean takes all of their money…No one knows who had stars or not… It’s a great message in this…to treat everyone the same no matter their background. (http://www.umich.edu/~childlit/Sneetches/display1.htm)

I am a sucker for Green Eggs and Ham. Still, love it and can read it or watch the cartoon in a box…with a…nevermind. The book was released in 1960 and as of 2016, it has sold over 8 million copies. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Eggs_and_Ham)

Green Eggs and Ham – is about Sam-I-Am, trying to convince an unnamed character to try green eggs and ham. He will stop at nothing but the more he tries to convince him to try green eggs and ham the more this character refuses. I love the wordplay in this as Sam-I-Am is a persistent little…uh…whatever he is…but he wins at that end.

“GREEN EGGS AND HAM” (by Doctor Seuss)

I AM SAM. I AM SAM. SAM I AM.

THAT SAM-I-AM! THAT SAM-I-AM! I DO NOT LIKE THAT SAM-I-AM!

DO WOULD YOU LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM?

I DO NOT LIKE THEM,SAM-I-AM.
I DO NOT LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM.

WOULD YOU LIKE THEM HERE OR THERE?

I WOULD NOT LIKE THEM HERE OR THERE.
I WOULD NOT LIKE THEM ANYWHERE.
I DO NOT LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM, SAM-I-AM.

WOULD YOU LIKE THEM IN A HOUSE?
WOULD YOU LIKE THEN WITH A MOUSE?

I DO NOT LIKE THEM IN A HOUSE.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM WITH A MOUSE.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM HERE OR THERE.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM ANYWHERE.
I DO NOT LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM, SAM-I-AM.

WOULD YOU EAT THEM IN A BOX?
WOULD YOU EAT THEM WITH A FOX?

NOT IN A BOX. NOT WITH A FOX.
NOT IN A HOUSE. NOT WITH A MOUSE.
I WOULD NOT EAT THEM HERE OR THERE.
I WOULD NOT EAT THEM ANYWHERE.
I WOULD NOT EAT GREEN EGGS AND HAM.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM, SAM-I-AM.

WOULD YOU? COULD YOU? IN A CAR?
EAT THEM! EAT THEM! HERE THEY ARE.

I WOULD NOT, COULD NOT, IN A CAR.

YOU MAY LIKE THEM. YOU WILL SEE.
YOU MAY LIKE THEM IN A TREE!

I WOULD NOT, COULD NOT IN A TREE.
NOT IN A CAR! YOU LET ME BE.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM IN A BOX.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM WITH A FOX.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM IN A HOUSE.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM WITH A MOUSE.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM HERE OR THERE.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM ANYWHERE.
I DO NOT LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM, SAM-I-AM.

A TRAIN! A TRAIN! A TRAIN! A TRAIN!
COULD YOU, WOULD YOU ON A TRAIN?

NOT ON TRAIN! NOT IN A TREE!
NOT IN A CAR! SAM! LET ME BE!
I WOULD NOT, COULD NOT, IN A BOX.
I WOULD NOT, COULD NOT, WITH A FOX.
I WILL NOT EAT THEM IN A HOUSE.
I WILL NOT EAT THEM HERE OR THERE.
I WILL NOT EAT THEM ANYWHERE.
I DO NOT EAT GREEM EGGS AND HAM.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM, SAM-I-AM.

SAY! IN THE DARK? HERE IN THE DARK!
WOULD YOU, COULD YOU, IN THE DARK?

I WOULD NOT, COULD NOT, IN THE DARK.

WOULD YOU COULD YOU IN THE RAIN?

I WOULD NOT, COULD NOT IN THE RAIN.
NOT IN THE DARK. NOT ON A TRAIN.
NOT IN A CAR. NOT IN A TREE.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM, SAM, YOU SEE.
NOT IN A HOUSE. NOT IN A BOX.
NOT WITH A MOUSE. NOT WITH A FOX.
I WILL NOT EAT THEM HERE OR THERE.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM ANYWHERE!

YOU DO NOT LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM?

I DO NOT LIKE THEM, SAM-I-AM.

COULD YOU, WOULD YOU, WITH A GOAT?

I WOULD NOT, COULD NOT WITH A GOAT!

WOULD YOU, COULD YOU, ON A BOAT?

I COULD NOT, WOULD NOT, ON A BOAT.
I WILL NOT, WILL NOT, WITH A GOAT.
I WILL NOT EAT THEM IN THE RAIN.
NOT IN THE DARK! NOT IN A TREE!
NOT IN A CAR! YOU LET ME BE!
I DO NOT LIKE THEM IN A BOX.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM WITH A FOX.
I WILL NOT EAT THEM IN A HOUSE.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM WITH A MOUSE.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM HERE OR THERE.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM ANYWHERE!
I DO NOT LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM!
I DO NOT LIKE THEM, SAM-I-AM.

YOU DO NOT LIKE THEM. SO YOU SAY.
TRY THEM! TRY THEM! AND YOU MAY.
TRY THEM AND YOU MAY, I SAY.

sAM! IF YOU LET ME BE,
I WILL TRY THEM. YOU WILL SEE.

(… and he tries them …)

SAY! I LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM!
I DO! I LIKE THEM, SAM-I-AM!
AND I WOULD EAT THEM IN A BOAT.
AND I WOULD EAT THEM WITH A GOAT…
AND I WILL EAT THEM, IN THE RAIN.
AND IN THE DARK. AND ON A TRAIN.
AND IN A CAR. AND IN A TREE.
THEY ARE SO GOOD, SO GOOD, YOU SEE!
SO I WILL EAT THEM IN A BOX.
AND I WILL EAT THEM WITH A FOX.
AND I WILL EAT THEM IN A HOUSE.
AND I WILL EAT THEM WITH A MOUSE.
AND I WILL EAT THEM HERE AND THERE.
SAY! I WILL EAT THEM ANYWHERE!
I DO SO LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM!
THANK YOU! THANK YOU, SAM I AM.

70s Saturday Mornings – Ark II

Opening Narration

For millions of years, Earth was fertile and rich; then pollution and waste began to take their toll. Civilization fell into ruin. This is the world of the Twenty-Fifth Century; only a handful of scientists remain, men who have vowed to rebuild what has been destroyed. This is their achievement: ARK II, a mobile storehouse of scientific knowledge, manned by a highly trained crew of young people. Their mission: To bring the hope of a new future to mankind.

Ark II was a television program produced by Filmation as part of their Saturday Morning live-action children’s block on the CBS network in The ’70s, along with Shazam and The Secrets of Isis. It follows the adventures of a group of Science Heroes who travel through post-apocalyptic landscapes in a highly advanced mobile laboratory, trying to rebuild human society after pollution has decimated the world. Fifteen episodes were produced in 1976, though it continued to run in syndication until 1979. (https://www.metv.com/lists/13-super-live-action-saturday-morning-kids-shows-of-the-1970s)

Ark II was another Saturday Morning show that I really liked. This show better writing than some of the other Saturday morning live-action shows. It showed what pollution would do to the earth beyond our generation. The real reason I liked it was because of the mobile ark and the devices and gadgets they used….and Ruth (Jean Marie Hon)!

You had a monkey who could talk, the cool roamer, a jetpack, and a robot in a post-apocalyptic land…and did I mention Ruth?

The Cool Ark Ruth A Young Helen Hunt

The Roamer…wonder where it is today?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKuF9M0y3FQ&ab_channel=CartoonsIntros

Some Saturday Morning Commercials while we waited for Ark II

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjScJQwNdQU&ab_channel=31Mike

Brewer & Shipley – One Toke Over the Line…and another version

This is a catchy counterculture song by Brewer and Shipley. It was released in 1970 and it peaked at #10 in the Billboard 100 and was their only top 40 hit.

This song was performed on the Lawrence Welk Show sung by Welk Musical Family singers on his weekly television show. In 1971, singers Gail Farrell and Dick Dale performed “One Toke Over the Line” on the show. And after the song, Welk is seen on camera saying, “There you heard a modern spiritual by Gail and Dale.”

Lawrence liked to have popular songs performed on is show…I don’t think he got the full meaning of this one.

From Songfacts.

The incident that sparked this song happened at the Vanguard in Kansas City, Missouri. The band was playing the show because, in seeking to escape the LA music scene, they started a tour of their Midwest homelands. Shipley reports that he was given a block of hash and told to take two hits. He ignored the advice and instead took three. Shipley recounts in The Vinyl Dialogues, “I go out of the dressing room – I’m also a banjo player, but I didn’t have one, so I was playing my guitar – and Michael (Brewer) came in and I said, ‘Jesus, Michael, I’m one toke over the line.’ And to be perfect honest, I don’t remember if Michael was with me when I took that hit or not. I remember it as ‘not’; I think Michael remembers it as ‘yes.’ And he started to sing to what I was playing, and I chimed in and boom, we had the line.”

Brewer also remembers the occasion. “I just cracked up,” he said. “I thought it was hysterical. And right on the spot, we just started singing, ‘One toke over the line, sweet Jesus,’ and that was about it; then we went onstage.”

Brewer and Shipley…below is the Lawrence Welk version

The Lawrence Welk Show

One toke over the line sweet Jesus
One toke over the line
Sittin’ downtown in a railway station
One toke over the line

Awaitin’ for the train that goes home, sweet Mary
Hopin’ that the train is on time
Sittin’ downtown in a railway station
One toke over the line

Whoooo do you love, I hope it’s me
I’ve bin a changin’, as you can plainly see
I felt the joy and I learned about the pain that my momma said
If I should choose to make a part of me, surely strike me dead
Now I’m one toke over the line sweet Jesus
One toke over the line
Sittin’ downtown in a railway station
One toke over the line
I’m waitin’ for the train that goes home sweet Mary
Hopin’ that the train is on time
Sittin’ downtown in a railway station
One toke over the line

I bin away a country mile
Now I’m returnin’ showin’ off a smile
I met all the girls and loved myself a few
Ended by surprise like everything else I’ve been through
It opened up my eyes and now I’m
One toke over the line sweet Jesus
One toke over the line
Sittin’ downtown in a railway station
Don’t you just know I waitin’ for the train that goes home sweet Mary
Hopin’ that the train is on time
Sittin’ downtown in a railway station
One toke over the line

Don’t you just know I waitin’ for the train that goes home sweet Mary
Hopin’ that the train is on time
Sittin’ downtown in a railway station
One toke over the line

I want to be
One toke over the line sweet Jesus
One toke over the line
Sittin’ downtown in a railway station
One toke over the line
Don’t you just know I waitin’ for the train that goes home sweet Mary
Hopin’ that the train is on time
Sittin’ downtown in a railway station
One toke over the line
Sittin’ downtown in a railway station
One toke over line
One toke, one toke over the line

70s Saturday Mornings – The Secrets of Isis!

Opening Narration

“O my Queen,” said the Royal Sorcerer to Hatshepsut, “with this amulet, you and your descendants are endowed by the Goddess Isis with the powers of the animals and the elements. You will soar as the falcon soars, run with the speed of gazelles, and command the elements of sky and earth.”

3000 years later, a young science teacher dug up this lost treasure, and found she was heir to — The Secrets of Isis!

JoAnna Cameron played the beautiful Andrea Thomas/ Isis. It was hard for an eight-year-old not to like her. Whenever the character Andrea Thomas was in trouble or needed to help someone she would wear the amulet and look up and say “Oh Mighty Isis” and out came the white outfit and Isis.

Like Shazam! it was a low budget show aimed at kids teaching life lessons. Isis was part Wonder Woman and part Bionic Woman. My favorite episodes were the ones that had Captain Marvel and Isis teamed up with each other.

The show aired in 1976-77 and had a total of 22 episodes. It was also part of the Shazam!/Isis Power Hour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tTUg8Kny6U&ab_channel=zanderbeans

Some seventies Saturday Morning commercials

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZRU8YG72hI&ab_channel=31Mike

70s Saturday Mornings – Shazam!

Opening Narration

Chosen from among all others by the immortal elders – Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, Mercury – Billy Batson and his mentor travel the highways and byways of the land on a neverending mission: to right wrongs, to develop understanding, and to seek justice for all! In time of dire need, young Billy has been granted the power by the immortals to summon awesome forces at the utterance of a single word!

The show aired from 1974 thru 1977 and was on CBS. Captain Marvel seventies style. The series had a grand total of 28 episodes.

I would watch this show right after Land of the Lost (Which I think was the best-written Saturday morning show) A live-action superhero show! I would get up early on a cold Saturday morning and lay on the floor with my blanket over the heating vent and watch Saturday Morning shows.

The show starred Michael Gray as Billy Batson. He traveled with an older man named “Mentor” played by Les Tremayne. They traveled in their motorhome and helped people in need. when trouble came Billy would say “SHAZAM!” and turn into Captain Marvel and save the day. but not before he talked to the “Elders” Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury.

It was a low-budget show aimed at kids teaching life lessons. You won’t see Captain Marvel taking on super villains but at the time it was a fun fantasy tv show. Between 1975-1977 it was part of the super Shazam/Isis Power Hour.